Wild One
by LittleMissInfamous
Summary: An idea brought on by a recent dream I had, involving Cas invading upon my dream to protect me from a great problem within my nightmares, leading to an unforeseen event. Title inspired by the song Wild One by I Am Harlequin. (Now a series of One Shots)
1. Wild One

_AN: An idea brought on by a recent dream I had, involving Cas invading upon my dream to protect me from a great problem within my nightmares, leading to an unforeseen event. Title inspired by the song Wild One by I Am Harlequin._

I was sitting outside; the sun was beating down onto the dry pavement, heating up the surrounding houses even as a soft breeze sifted through the trees, creating peaceful music through the grass and leaves as they swished together like a light drum roll to announce another silence. I watched the group across the street and around me take part in a local garage sale, buying various different items without a single thought. I viewed a man pick up a pair of socks. A child picked up a toy airplane and watched it gleam in the sunlight. All the while I sat steady in my lawn chair throne, watching over the neighborhood.

Suddenly I was struck by a feeling of astonishment when I looked across the street and two lovely paint horses weaved their way through the residents, tossing their heads up and prancing across the sidewalk. Standing up hastily, I paced over to the other side of the street towards the curious creatures, letting my hand stretch into the space between us. I nickered at the two beautiful creatures, and a great gray and brown gelding trotted up to me, stopping short in front of me. I took hold of the reins around his neck, allowing him to guide me to a house a few blocks south as I looked up and noticed the sun was setting. I stroked him thankfully from his forehead down to his snout, and he huffed at me as he raced back to join his partner on their journey beyond the road.

"Hey, come on!" I called to the people. "They'll be here soon! This place is safe!" The residents I lead walked where I lead them without a questioning word. The woman who owned the house let us in, ushering us to a latch that lead to a basement area. One by one, all the people wandered down, and I closed the latch behind me as I headed back up to the kitchen, looking out the window and waiting for the head counters that would surely be coming around as soon as the sun set. The home owner, a blonde with medium length hair and worry lines around her eyes, studied me and pressed onto the small of my back, leading me to the hiding space when she noticing the enemies gathering outside.

"You too! You may be safe, but that does not explain why you would be in my residence." I nodded and followed her instructions to get into the basement. Once down there, I found my people in a frenzy, looking into a huge area with two entry doors at the far end of the walls to the left and right to me. The room had to be the size of two high school gymnasiums, and I couldn't figure out why the group wasn't moving in. "Hey! Hey, come on!"

"See for yourself!" One of the men yelled at me, pointing into the room. With gray light bleeding through some high windows that could have easily passed as basement windows, the room didn't seem to include any threat until I saw two massive creatures step up to meet me. One was a dragon, the size of a corner of the room, decorated with red and purple scales and sporting many scars and incisions to its form but that didn't seem to have slowed it down. The other was a moving mass of sand that regained a human form even as the grains still drifted around it: The Sandman.

A familiar beat of wings had me whirling towards another threat, and I looked at him fearfully. Pity for my terror seemed to pass his features and highlight within his deep blue eyes, and I recognized Castiel only as he lunged at the Sandman and engaged in relentless combat. When I lifted my arms to block a swipe of the dragons claws, the sharp edges met a strong metal curve. I looked down upon the shiny black bow with a hint of wonder before I felt the comforting weight of the arrows resting between my shoulders. As the dragon lunged towards me I released arrow after arrow, only shoulder rolled behind a pillar for cover when I was left with only one arrow. I turned around to shoot, but fire was engulfing the surfaces around the pillar and pouring towards me like a wave. I quickly got back behind the pillar, curling in on myself to reduce the risk of burns, but my arrow clattered out of reach and burned with everything else around me. When the fire ceased, I turned and saw the dragon taking time to breathe after the attack and searched frantically for a useful offensive weapon. Shifting my foot, a shard of glass scraped beneath my heel with a shuddering scratch. I picked it up, thankful that it was indeed sharp enough and quickly got out of hiding and threw the shard like a throwing knife into the dragon's eye, killing it instantly as the glass buried itself into the nerve center, and it dropped, twitching greatly. I smiled widely, breathing hard, and searched for any sign of Cas. I saw what had to be the remains of the Sandman drifting from one room to the next like it had bled out before crumpling into a heap near the furthest doorway from me.

My grin fell and I ran out of the room.

Cas was lying in as much a heap as the sandman was, knocked out cold, and a group of people had surrounded him to protect him from the rest of the rioting crowd. I crouched before him, touching his face. When he didn't shift, I began to panic, but decided the crowd wouldn't help so I made it my first priority to get them into the room. When the smaller room was drained of bodies, I reached down and touched Cas' side, running my fingers along his coat as I watched his face. He chose that moment to open his eyes quickly, groaning and wincing at the overhead lights. I sighed. "Give him some room, guys. Join the rest of the people in there. We are far from harms way." My men nodded obediently, wandering into the room, and that was when I turned to see Cas standing before me. I gasped, and he took my face gingerly in his hands, pulling me forward for a soft kiss that startled me so much I woke up with a start.

Castiel was there. My fingers had danced up to cover my lips, and the rebel angel was doing much of the same. We looked at each other for a moment, before he blushed hard, smiling softly. I heard the shuffle of his wings as he flew from the room, and laid down, still breathing hard from the nightmare, before allowing myself a small little grin, my heart fluttering in my chest.


	2. Do you feel what I feel?

_AN: A quick little one shot I wrote up on my phone during a road trip, regarding Cas learning what it is to be human._ _Set to "Middle of June" by Noah Gundersen._

Castiel could remember a lot of instances when the tiny hunter had expanded his knowledge of human emotional behavior, therein aiding him in classifying and categorizing how to respond to certain situations where he would have been defenseless during the beginning of his time on Earth. Being a celestial wavelength minimized the emotion reacting within an angel, as they are pure energy, and therefore cannot be altered.

He remembered the first time they'd conversed and she'd snapped at him- snapped being the only word he could conjure to relate to the whipping force of her words, meant to crack against him. He'd felt a warmth burn off her soul. At the time, he had the intellect to realize questioning the dangerous force was not an option. Later, however, he did inquire upon what she had been 'feeling' at the moment of her fiery snapping. She had laughed at his obliviousness.

"That was anger, Cas. I was irritated by my under appreciated work for the angels I consult with. So, I lashed out in hatred. Sorry about that, by the way."

"It was not of import. You are forgiven."

If he were to be brutally honest, when questioning on humanity, The tiny one was much clearer on the topic then the rest of his humans. Sam was too technical, it never allowed Cas to expand his understanding to a more human depth. Dean wasn't always the best at speaking of his 'feelings'. So when once again Cas appeared oblivious to the scene unraveling around him, he called upon the quickly-becoming-familiar girl for an explanation. This particular scene was increasingly saddening.

Dean hovered over a young woman, laying in a pool of her own blood and sickeningly white. He was pressing his hands to the center of her chest, pushing hard against her chest cavity and forcing her heart to pump blood through her veins. "Come on, come on!" Dean growled under his breath, "You're going to make it!" Bright eyes were watching Dean sadly. Her fingers clenched and unclenched around the sheath of her machete, where the blade had long since been put away after the fighting had stopped.

"I don't understand." Cas said quickly and hardly, clearly disgruntled by the fact. "She is obviously dead. Her pulse has been nonfunctional for the previous two minutes. Why is he informing her she will be revived?" He could feel upsetting waves of tension that seemed to have a hard time clenching and sometimes smoothed into a static-like panic rolling off of Dean's shoulders. He was hushed softly.

"Denial." She whispered. "He doesn't want to believe that he has failed her. We don't have the numerous facts of human life memorized. A few minutes ago, he couldn't bring himself to give up on her, because he did not want to accept the inevitable." She watched Dean's hands stop, and he pulled them back to rest limply in his lap. "Now he understands, and the denial is gone. This is acceptance."

Cas nodded slowly, his deep blue eyes inspecting Dean's form while he felt the fighting static drain to a hopeless little hum.

He remembered the good emotions too. The simple emotions that could be taken in stride were easiest to learn. Happiness was a swelling warmth that gravitated inches off the skin, giving off heat to the surrounding area. When he'd felt _her_ happiness, it was quite similar to Dean's- she was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and singing along to her music as it filtered through her car. Whenever she hugged someone she became quite happy as well, leaving a lingering warmth radiating off them as well.

He felt excitement. This was a thrum of electric tension coiled in the chest. A small brunette from across the street became excited every day at four o'clock when Sam was home at Bobby's scrap yard and they were scheduled to train together. She'd joined the force quickly after a werewolf on his way to avenge his dead mate and kill Bobby ran into her on the sidewalk walking home from the grocery store.

Emotions were all simple to learn, individually. The rebel angel encountered a difficulty once he could interpret them, however. Did you know humans are even capable of feeling more than one specific emotion at one time? Castiel certainly hadn't. Sometimes he could feel Dean's emotions intermingling between anger and sadness. Sam usually felt tense- just in general, no emotional heading assaulting his mind- and semi nostalgic. The dark haired angel was almost certain he was remembering the small portion of his life he spent in college. It was the most peaceful time of his life.

When situations became intricate, emotional overlap became overwhelming- especially to the angel who tried so hard to understand his friends in order to be of assistance once the problem has been averted, even just for the mean time. It became... hard, for Cas, to feel emotions such as his friends had shown him and be able to sympathize where even empathy used to lack in his being, but not be able to cure their emotional wounds.

There was only one emotion that Cas had yet to properly understand: The emotion of pain. There were different types and mysterious causes- some created by internal agony and others by external conflict- Cas had begun to get confused as to which he was facing. He understood emotional weariness. He understood the pain of lonliness. He understood the pain of physical injury.

Yet none of those compared to that of grief.

Grief was a barrelling onslaught of pain. Physically, it created the illusion of a tightened heart and throat. Blood and pulse raced faster. Breaths came harsher.

Emotionally, burning waves of release exited the human soul as it cringed into the darkest recesses it could find to protect itself, effectively snuffing out the energy's flame as well, causing a coldness the angel could only imagine in the pit of a human's stomach.

Mentally, denial and confusion intermingled to cloud all concious thought, furthering the heightened power of pain as all that could be registered.

Cas had empathized and spoken of mourning. He had conducted ceremonies for fallen brothers a multitude of times before. Yet, Castiel had never known grief like the small girl had radiated, clutching to Gabriel's jacket as she fell to her knees on the cold hardwood floor when Sam and Dean returned from the Elysian Fields Hotel.

The angel flinched.


End file.
